Forum:New Rules Proposal 2018
Introduction We're having the perennial issue of users coming in and ignoring the rules. I suspect it's just that people don't actually read them, but it could be that the current rules are too numerous or lacking in clarity. So I've worked with MongoosePirate to create what I hope are more streamlined guidelines and rules. I post them here to give the community a chance to review and comment on them for possible revision. If all goes well, they'll be official soon.--OvaltinePatrol (talk) 00:02, February 8, 2018 (UTC) Guidelines *Play nice. An article that doesn’t break specific rules, but still has issues that make it out of place with the setting or the function of the shared nature of this wiki, is subject to Administrator review. If you can’t bring an article in line, it could be deleted. *Your characters and groups are not the protagonist or primary antagonists of the Fallout setting. **It may be helpful to consider them as NPCs that could potentially be killed or overthrown by the likes of the Vault Dweller or Sole Survivor. *It’s in poor taste to claim huge swathes of the world, especially within a single article. *Give some thought to the kinds of names you give things. Say them out loud and consider if they’re really as cool or realistic as they seem in your head. *Many types of technology are extremely scarce, such as power armor and working vehicles. **An army in power armor with a fleet of vertibirds won’t let your faction conquer a canon faction, or another user’s faction without their permission. Wouldn’t it be frustrating to write about a well equipped, but impotent group? Rules 1. Harassment, trolling, and vandalism will result in a ban of whatever duration an administrator deems appropriate. 2. Obscene images such as pornography or photos of gore, are not allowed. *'2a.' Images inconsistent with the aesthetic and art direction of the series are not allowed. 3. Users must be logged in to create and edit articles. Edits by unregistered users are subject to revision or deletion. 4. Adhere to canon. 5. Respect existing fanon. Other than for proofreading purposes, do not edit other users articles without their permission. *'5a.' Do not make changes to other users content within your own articles without prior collaboration. *'5b.' Do not ignore another user’s preexisting content, or override it with your content. 6. Categorize articles and uploaded files. 7. Incomplete articles are considered abandoned after 30 days of inactivity, and are subject to adoption or deletion. 8. Do not create articles for canon characters, events, groups, or locations. 9. Do not dramatically expand upon, or change canon characters, events, groups, or locations in your articles. For example, creating a character who is a member of a canon faction or who lives in a canon location is acceptable, creating a character who leads or destroys a canon faction or location is not. *'9a.' Do not extend the timeline beyond the current events of the latest playable year in the series. 10. When creating vaults, do not repeat the experiment of any other canon or fanon vault. 11. Do not include extraterrestrials, extraterrestrial technology, or Cabot’s precursor species in your articles. 12. Do not create articles for unique or “legendary,” pieces of equipment or items that wouldn’t be out of place as a “cheat mod.” 13. Do not use nicknames or ranks in article titles. Comments Please post your comments and suggestions under here. We're hoping this will address some of the concerns that have been raised in the last couple weeks or so. I understand the desire to keep the wiki running to certain standards, but I also feel that there's a point where you get just a bit overzealous. The last article that was deleted for not fitting the guidelines was only given a day between warning and deletion. That's hardly a fair chance for the author to re-write it. They might not have even been aware of the notification before the axe fell. If an article has issues, then by all means yes, tag it as problematic and notify the user (eg on their talk page) but give them a reasonable amount of time to do it. Everything seems in order but maybe, as a suggestion, have a quick rules section that is a sentence long, like "Adhere to Canon" for us mungos who don't wanna read too much. Just saying... Honestly, I think the rules as written right now are pretty clear. Streamlining things is not a bad thing necessarily, but let's be honest: the people that generally post an article that violates the rules 90% of the time probably never read the rules to begin with, so it doesn't really matter how clear or convoluted they are. I don't know if Wikia supports this (probably not), but is there a way where a page with the rules can pop-up before a user posts their first article (or any article, I guess), and nothing can get posted until they click "I read and agree" or something to that effect? @KayEmm: I believe Mongoose made his decision based on the author continuing to make edits that violated the rules, while ignoring messages. If I'm mistaken, Mongoose please clarify. @'Legate Janitorious R': That's literally rule #4. Thanks for confirming that people don't read rules though :-\ @'Dagnirion': We live in hope. I don't know if there's such a thing. I know that it's possible to edit a wiki's Java code, but you need permission from Wikia to do it. I wouldn't know how to do all that though. @OvaltinePatrol:You’re correct, that was the reason. New rules will be going live on Thursday. This is the time for the community to speak up, especially on the subject of Brotherhood of Steel/Enclave articles. The sentiments of the community has changed back and forth many times as to whether or not these should be allowed or what kind of restrictions (if any) should be placed on them. @'OvaltinePatrol': Ah yes, that's my cue. I think restrictions, especially on factions such as the BoS and the Enclave, are still necessary to reduce some extreme power creep on the wiki. I think people can write these factions well, like KayEmm in Detroit, but this isn't always the case, as longtime users will remember from various chapters that have popped up and been deleted over the years. Not every user can write these groups well. Therefore, I think administrator approval for usage of these two factions should still be required in the updated rules. I understand the need for such restrictions, and I feel that they are a good idea as long as they are applied consistently. If the Brotherhood and Enclave are restricted/approval only, then I feel the same should be applied to other major factions; the Institute, Railroad, NCR, Caesar's Legion and so on. @KayEmm: Going to have disagree somewhat for two reasons: • The Enclave and the Brotherhood of Steel are the groups most frequently done on this wiki due to their high technological level and power. So, I think they are somewhat unique in that respect (besides perhaps the Institute, though we have not had a problem with them yet). • I feel that putting restrictions making pages for larger major factions such as the NCR and Caesar’s Legion, would be kind of excessive since those groups are, in canon, already very large and have more potential characters/groups within them while the smaller groups have less. As an example, a NCR merchant in Baja California or a Legion centurion in Colorado are much less problematic than a Brotherhood Paladin in Florida or an Enclave Commander in Massachusetts. I hope that made my viewpoint a little clearer. Both of you guys have valid points, so maybe phrasing things in such a way where citing or involving canon factions is not outright prohibited, but using them in "overpowered ways" is (phrasing it much better than that, of course). There's a big difference between, say, making a character that cites the Brotherhood of Steel/Caesar's Legion/NCR/Institute/Railroad/whoever else as formative in their history in some way and making a character that went renegade from any of those groups and went to Alaska to form their own version of it with Chinese ghoul remnants. While it generally doesn't happen that much here, I think that can be done with any canon faction, which is why I agree they should all be put in the same umbrella. I just had a notion on the subject. "Everyone" wants to write a BoS chapter, but it could lead to a real absurd glut if everyone got to make individual chapters. There's the nightmare scenario where you'll have different brotherhood chapters in the same town, or on the same neighborhood. At that point you've turned a quasi-monastic, pseudo-knightly order into a street gang. What if these and Enclave stuff could only be done as a collaborative effort with 3 or more writers? We used to have more of these kinds of efforts actually, not as a function of the rules admittedly. Addition: Besides the 3+ authors rule, might want to have some "good faith," rule about letting additional people who want to contribute have a fair shot at joining. It wouldn't do to lock out people who really want to get their BoS/Enclave writing hats on. They should have the opportunity to prove themselves in a collab. The whole idea of a shared, community effort for the real OP factions like the Enclave/BoS is perfect; I feel as though one other addition needed would be the need for these detachments or chapters not to be so OP as to essentially flatten any combined opposition, but still strong enough to take on individual armies of wastelanders; after all, a group like, say as an example, my Swallow Hills Militia would absolutely not be able to take on the likes of an Enclave detachment that set up in the old military base, but with a coalition, say something financially backed by New California Merchant House and given a boost of manpower by the likes of mercenaries, reformed bandits and Luminate Tribe; something like that would stand a fighting chance. It might even be good to have the odd war akin to that; be nice for the occasional roleplay and as something of an informative, learning experience for characters that otherwise might not get much in the way of backstory. I think the idea is sound but with some caveats. While I do like the "three author collaboration" idea, I'd imagine that obviously the writer(s) would have the choice of who they do and do not want to work with. The other thing that I do think might be needed is an overall mission statement for such a proposed collaboration to define things like size, scope, numbers, strengths, locations and the like to prevent power creep. Well here I am now so let the bloodshed begin… I agree that would shouldn’t allow the creation large groups of Brotherhood or Enclave, especially when armed to the tip like their canon counterparts. And I thought I should note that, just because the Railroad and Minutemen have the ability to practically destroy the Brotherhood doesn’t mean we can let that go to the users heads. Aside from 4, there are not many instances of a faction fighting the Brotherhood head-on UNLESS they have basically endless resources such as NCR with overwhelming numbers, manufacturing, etc… Instead, I believe that the use of such factions would consist of small recon squads or exhausted remnant forces. This is an example: Perhaps an Enclave remnant crashed in some region while on retreat from Navarro or from Adams AFB. This squad consists only of seven; two soldiers with power armor and energy weaponry (one has malfunctioning power armor, rendering it useless to wear), one soldier who was killed in the crash, an officer with a plasma pistol, a scientist, and two pilots in officers wear (one of which also died). With the hope of establishing a permanent base, they attempt to find a nearby Pre-War federal facility but are not successful (one is overrun with feral ghouls and radiation, etc...). They eventually find a local settlement in this deserted region only to find out that it is somewhere in northern Oregon. The settlement is failing with dying crops, failing water pumps, and is plagued by cannibal and raider attacks. The remnant visits this settlement and, using their knowledge and technology, offer to help their farm, pumps, and fight the raiders along with develop their settlement. In return the settlement provides the squad with a portion of crops to feed them and acts as a state of the Enclave. The settlement accepts as it is better than what they were suffering through (plus it didn’t seem wise to refuse an offer from a stern man in mobilized tank armor with a glowing energy weapon that could turn him into goo with one shot). About a week later, the remnant begins developing a plan to counterattack the New California Republic. The plan is to destroy Shady Sands, the capital of the NCR. However, a trader who had passed through not long ago had traveled back to NCR controlled territory (Klamath at this time) and spread stories of a settlement of power armored men with technology more advanced than that of the Brotherhood. The trader is invited to a Brotherhood bunker nearby and meets high ranking BoS and NCR officers who question him about the rumors of his. He confirms the presence of these men and, after his compensation, then the NCR congress and Brotherhood Elder council meet. They quickly decide to send a joint force of NCR rangers and BoS Paladins to wipe them out. With little resistance, the exhausted Enclave remnant is wiped out. This is how I think the factions should be used: as small units with the maximum being a squad 12. I mean, the Enclave are greatly dispersed at this time and Lord knows the status of the West Coast BoS. They’ve had entire chapters desert and are now fighting a nation that surrounds them from Baja up to Oregon. I doubt the Brotherhood's goal is to send out another chapter at this time… most major locations such as the East Coast, Texas, and Chicago have been covered (if all is canon). And if there still a major Enclave threat, all NCR and Brotherhood forces would forget their fighting and do all possible to stop them. The use of these factions can break canon. Not too mention how unfair it would be for the region. I mean any user made faction could be wiped out by either factions. And the more users who have “special permission” to make a unit of either faction will only influence other new members. Eventually newer members will begin making these without any permission just because they think they can and the wiki will be overran which will bring it back to the dark age. So, in conclusion, I agree with the whole banning of Enclave and Brotherhood articles. Only experienced, active, and knowledgeable users should have permission to make such articles with a limit of 12 men for a unit. And there has to be a very very good reason to do so but maybe not even then. Remember to use common sense in the lore and that there is a long split between 2281-2287. We are here to expand the lore of regions in Fallout, not exactly play with the canon factions. A little late with my response, but maybe if a group of people bring up the idea of working with one of those kinds of groups, it becomes a community project/contest?